Thursday, July 16, 2009

The Best of Azar Habib Podcast

The most-repeated of the Azar Habib (عازار حبيب) truisms is that he was the first Arab musician to blend a "light western style" with "eastern rhythm." To me, this is a pretty banal way to describe Habib's music which combines some of the most innovative and catchy beats to ever come from a synth. Testament to the Lebanese singer's popularity is how his songs are in constant rotation on Damascus and Beirut radio stations, but there were missteps along the way.

Much like one wonders what Elvis was thinking in his Vegas days, one wonders what Habib was thinking recording songs that harken a carnival or, even odder, some type of vampire shakedown. Yet much to his credit, even when his songs teeter on kitsch, redeemable loops abound and he's never uninteresting.

This podcast is a sample of my favorite Azar Habib songs, between tracks that I instantly loved -- and tracks that on first-listen sounded campy, but then developed into undeniable classics.

Egyptian Arabic Course

Hey guys, I've launched a new Egyptian Arabic online course in the blog format using exclusively songs to help learners of Arabic bridge the gap between their knowledge of Standard Arabic and Egyptian dialect. Check it out here.